Acantha Wins $8.2 Million Patent Infringement Verdict Against DePuy Synthes

The Dallas-based intellectual property and business litigation law firm Caldwell Cassady & Curry has won an $8.2 million patent infringement verdict for Acantha LLC against medical device manufacturer DePuy Synthes, a subsidiary of health care giant Johnson & Johnson.
 
A jury of five women and three men issued the unanimous verdict on Aug. 21, 2018, following seven days of trial before the Hon. Chief Judge William C. Griesbach in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin in Green Bay. Jurors reached their verdict following five hours of deliberations.
 
DePuy Synthes was sued in 2015 based on claims that it had infringed an Acantha patent, U.S. Patent No. RE43,008 (‘008 patent), which covers an orthopedic implant assembly used to join bone segments. Acantha’s ‘008 patent was originally issued in 2001 before being reissued in 2011 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
 
The Caldwell Cassady & Curry trial team representing Acantha at trial included Brad Caldwell, Austin Curry, Chris Stewart, John Summers and Seth Reich.
 
Jurors heard evidence that David Talaber, one of the two co-inventors of the ‘008 patent, informed DePuy Synthes’s predecessors about the patent in writing and by phone the year after it was issued.
 
Talaber’s co-inventor, Dr. James Lloyd, later traveled to DePuy’s Massachusetts headquarters in 2006 to explain how Acantha’s patent could help with problems DePuy experienced with its implant devices. The DePuy companies never licensed the patent.
 
Acantha asserted that DePuy Synthes subsequently infringed the ‘008 patent in a series of spine implant devices, including the Zero-P VA System and the Vectra, Vectra-T, and Vectra-One products.
 
The Green Bay jury found that the DePuy companies willfully infringed Acantha’s patent, awarding $8.2 million in actual damages. The case is Acantha LLC v. DePuy Synthes Sales Inc., et al., No. 1:15-CV-01257.